Some original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) provide a user equipment (UE) (e.g., a mobile device) to retailers and/or consumers in an uninitialized state. When the UE is in an uninitialized state, the UE cannot connect to a cellular network because the UE does not have information necessary to connect to a particular cellular network of a carrier. The information needs to be downloaded to the UE for the device to be in the initialized state.
Currently, in order to download the information, one approach requires the UE to be physically connected, via a cable, to a computer with a high speed data connection. In order to use the first approach, the user of the UE has to locate the computer with the high speed data connection and the cable to connect the UE to the computer. Another approach is to wirelessly connect the UE to a high speed data connection via a wireless local area network (LAN) router. In order to use the second approach, the user of the UE has to locate an area that is within a particular range of the wireless LAN router and manually configure a wireless connection between the UE and the wireless LAN router.
Furthermore, some UEs include uninitialized smart cards (e.g., Universal Integrated Circuit Cards (UICCs)) that were not pre-provisioned in a cellular network. Accordingly, an uninitialized smart card of a UE cannot be used to connect the UE to a cellular network. An associate of a service provider has to manually provision the smart card in the cellular network before the smart card of the UE can be used to connect the UE to the cellular network